Cons

Bottom Line

StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void is both a fantastic conclusion to Blizzard's five-year saga and a great entry point into one of the most complex, but satisfying, strategy games ever.
It's a towering achievement.

20 Nov 2015

In 1998, the original StarCraft struck the real-time strategy gaming landscape like an asteroid, and its impact changed the genre forever. When the sequel was announced a decade later, countless fans became filled with anticipation for a follow-up to a perfect game and full-on sport in some parts of the world. But the market has changed between the 2010 launch of Wings of Liberty (the opening chapter of the StarCraft II trilogy) and now. MOBA games like Dota 2 and League of Legend have sucked all of the oxygen, and money, from the traditional RTS genre while fully legitimatizing the idea of eSports. Where does that future leave a storied institution like StarCraft II?

After playing hours and hours of Legacy of the Void , the third and final StarCraft II expansion, I'm pleased to say that this $39.99 PC game is both a fantastic conclusion to Blizzard's five-year saga and a great entry point into one of the most complex, but satisfying, strategy games ever. It's a towering achievement and an Editors' Choice.

Good Luck, Have FunIn a nutshell, StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void is a sci-fi real-time strategy game in which you build structures and gather resources to build an army and defeat your opponent through cunning tactics and sheer firepower. Unlike the previous StarCraft II expansion, Legacy of the Void doesn't require you to buy any previous versions of the game to play this package. It's completely standalone. That said, if you do own the other two episodes, the Battle.net launcher compiles them into a single interface so you to easily hop among missions for the humanoid Terrans, insectoid/reptilian Zerg, and regal alien Protoss. I'll talk about multiplayer in a later section, since that might as well be its own game, but seeing all three races in the single-player menu made me feel as though I was playing a complete StarCraft game for the first time since the original.

Even on its own, Legacy of the Void is a complete product. While the campaign only focuses on the Protoss race, it still takes several sittings to finish, depending on the strength of your strategies or fondness for cheat codes. Like in the second episode, there aren't quite as many missions here than in the first third of StarCraft II, but this expansion also doesn't cost as much as that initial $60 release.

About the Author

Former PCMag intern Jordan Minor is a senior editor at sister site, Geek.com, and really just wants to use his fancy Northwestern University journalism degree to write about video games. He's previously written for Kotaku, The A.V. Club, Cards Against Humanity, and 148Apps. In his spare time, he also writes dumb screenplays that occasionally become dumb movies. Follow Jordan on Twitter at @JordanWMinor. See Full Bio